People Like Us
by SapSorrow
Summary: Set after First Class, Erik is gone and Charles muses. Much angst. Very hurt. First person, Cherik. Currently T rated, may go up if continued.
1. Chapter 1

**People Like Us**

There was a moment once; I could give you it exactly, but I won't, not now. A moment when I heard you think as though you had said it out loud –

_People like us don't say I love you._

Why'd you think that, Erik? Why would that be the way it had to be? I'd wanted to question it there and then – it should have been easy just to say _People like us? But of course we do. Of course we can!_

But there wouldn't have been an _of course_ for you, and in the moment I realised it, the ability to say it out loud had gone.

Did there need to be a series of moments to highlight our differences? There didn't. But they existed anyway. Remember the day out of many days that we had played chess together, and I had finally broached the question of whether or not it was not cheating on your part to move the pieces without touching them.

"Why _not _use what you have?" you had replied.

"By that logic, _you_ would never win," I retorted.

"So you've never done it? Can you really tell me you've never done it – even the time I beat you five games down and you suddenly took me out in the last game even though you'd been losing?"

"Damn," I said. "You got me. But that was the only time. Besides technically – your move ends when you take your finger off the piece. Why create the ambiguity?"

"Ambiguity is," you shrugged and would say no more until I re-broached the subject several moves later, when I commented on whether or not your method of playing was not against the rules.

"You and your rules," you said – or something very like it – "We did not make them. Why should we follow them?"

"Because if we did not, we would not be able to play at all."

After that, you told me to shut up and the rest of that day we did _not _play. At least not at chess.

_x_

There was so much I should have said. So many things I could have told you that would all have boiled down to this one inevitable truth, and so of course, I told you nothing. I would have told these things to people I barely knew before I breathed a word to you.

All my life had been a swirl of voices under which I had so often felt to be drowning. So much strength needed to differentiate, so much control. I was lazy when I was young. I did not want to always try, preferring to wallow in what felt like it could only be madness. Noisy, chattering loudness that kept sleep far away and peace always removed. And then there you were, and it was fitting that you be drowning because there we were together, together in our separate seas. But in those cold waters where I found you, like something out of ancient mythology – I found silence, a stillness in my mind I had never imagined. Because your thoughts did not swirl, as the rest of the world did, but were something intent and firm and woven with mine as though they had always been there and that this was what I had been searching for the whole time, in all that confusion and noise – the mind to which mine could attune.

Of course I underplay how terrifying it was, for nostalgia gives everything a twist of untruth. But I know that for a while I was sure, _certain _that I had found my path. That the future had become more mapped for me than I had thought I could ever be. It was wonderful, thrilling, frightening and curiously close to perfect.

And not to last.

For then you were gone, and I could not help but wonder if three judiciously timed words could not have held you back. I had been on the verge, right there on the beach. Why did it have to be then that I finally and for once agreed with you on _something –_anything – and why did it have to be that? And was it not ironic that in agreeing I was conceding to a point you had been making all along, that there _was _a state of _them _and _us _and that it had to be this way. Why did I have to be ruined by your words just as I was breaking away from you out of a disagreement I could _see _your side of?

_Would _it even have held you back? You seemed to be doing well at doing all you could to keep me out of your head. There were more barriers there than just the damned helmet. It did not matter, in the end that was no end to anything at all. It did not matter to wonder what the result of any such utterance on my part would have been. You were right –

People like us don't say I Love You.

_x_

**So this is the first time I've written for this fandom, I'm just sort of testing the waters! If it's any good it may grow into something – if not I may try something else. Feedback would be very much appreciated as I'm always nervous about writing with new characters! :-)**


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

"There will never be a time," you said, "That the world does not come after me. You know the saying – first they came for the Jews – I've not had your luxury of being one of those who can pat themselves on the back for having the decency to speak up for an oppressed minority, Charles. You say the world is getting better. You say attitudes improve, you say they will move on, that they _are _moving on. That sexuality no longer matters like it used to. Perhaps you're right. I don't think you are. But even _if_ you are. _If_ it ever becomes a non-issue, they will find someone else to come after. They'll come after the mutants. Whether or not you can say _we _have stood a chance, you cannot honestly say that _I _have."

"It's not all about you Erik," I said – "Maybe _you _need to stop attacking yourself before anyone else can begin."

"That's nonsense."

"Is it?"

"Yes it is! You keep your soft psychology for those who buy into it. You won't work that one on me."

"I only meant you cannot expect others not to set you apart if you do so to yourself readily enough. You can't expect to be accepted, if you will not accept yourself."

"Accept myself? You honestly think that's the right accusation? You who spend all you time passing for as close to human as you can – you tell me to _accept myself?"_

"Perhaps it was a poor choice of words."

"It was more than poor. You waste so much energy on trying to fit in amongst people who are so much less than you- when you are better than they will ever be. You _and _Raven."

"Leave her out of it – and it's not about who's _better."_

"Isn't it?"

I sighed. I wondered if you would ever believe me when I said I did not want to fight, but here we were again; another quiet evening, another rising debate, always following the same paths, swinging circles round and round each other while the firelight crackled softly behind us, gently trying to encourage us towards other pursuits. I _wanted_ to engage in other pursuits, I really did. In those early days there was so much I struggled to tell you. I found it hard to believe that we could so easily, so _predictably _always fall to arguing when it was the last thing I really wanted to do. It was a cruel irony that I had always been so easily able to get whoever I set my eye on with a well-oiled routine but then – when it really mattered, all I ended up doing with you was fighting. I wished my head did not even allow me the horror of imagining running that routine through you – of your reaction perhaps to be told you had a _very groovy mutation _– dear god! It occurred to me – and forgive me, it was the first time – that that entire shtick made me the most incredible douchebag. I must have let my disgust at my own thoughts show blatantly on my face because you frowned and asked me what on earth I was thinking. I was just wondering how I could even faintly begin to explain – or avoid explaining, when I heard you chastise yourself so loudly you may as well have said it out loud – _Oh for God's sake, so what if he has a nice ass?_

It was like suddenly hearing a member of the royal family swear – I could not believe what I was not exactly hearing. I was so surprised I could not stop myself –

"Really?"

"Really what?"

"You think I have a ….nice…..ass?" I trailed off.

"I don't believe I said – did you just?"

"I didn't mean to! I was – distracted! And you were thinking really loudly!"

"Dear god, what _were _you thinking?"

"It was –" I stammered. And yes, not only did I have no routine, I was suddenly for the first time in my life rendered the most ridiculous babbling idiot – "I was thinking something similar. Um –"

"Really? You were thinking about your own –"

"Well!" I dread to think how red I had got – "Is that the time? Well – goodnight Erik I really must –"

And so, to cap off the most amazing bout of feeling like an idiot I believe I had ever had before then I hastened from the room like a damned blushing schoolgirl, your call of my name ringing in my ears.

I paced my room for too long that night, sternly telling myself to stop thinking about seeking out your thoughts at that moment. Wondering what the devil was going on. I was no stranger to – to _fancying _someone, male or female – if that was what this was – but I was certainly a stranger to it leaving my insides in knots like these.

When I finally threw myself down on the bed in a dozen different kinds of frustration the handcuffs hanging from the bedpost clinked at me accusingly, mocking me with what I suddenly realised was the meaninglessness of every sexual encounter I had ever had. I threw them across the room and lay awake for hours that night, trying not to think about those handcuffs floating back into place and the metal fastening itself as though spontaneously around my wrists.

_x_

**Hey so, there's a possibly maybe plot-ish thing happening and very probably porn in the next chapter or two! Woo hoo!**


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